


A scourge of beasts

by cornwallace, Dorminchu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Absurd, Apologies to Hajime Isayama, Body Horror, Collaboration, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dark Crack, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fisting, Graphic Description of Corpses, Harm to Children, I Don't Even Know, Kinda, Mindfuck, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Other, Out of Character, Please Don't Kill Me, Sasha Being Sasha, Sassy Armin Arlert, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trost Arc, Weird Plot Shit, but the mindfuck is not for shits and giggles..., more like taking an unhealthy amount of liberties with the trost arc, this fic is a trainwreck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 01:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12806355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornwallace/pseuds/cornwallace, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorminchu/pseuds/Dorminchu
Summary: or; If there is a god, he doesn't live in Trost.





	1. 01: The sun sets over Trost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A souvlaki in hand is worth a fist in the bush."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This segment was written by cornwallace. Originally published 06/06/2015 on ffnet.

"Where's Armin? It's weird seeing you without your little boyfriend."

"He was savagely beaten to death over a loaf of bread about a week ago," Eren replies nonchalantly, looking at his nails. His fingers curled over his palm, he straightens them out and readjusts his hand to get a different angle. "You don't remember that?"

"Oh yeah," Annie says, looking out onto the river, leaning her back against the stone railing, arms crossed. "That did happen, didn't it?"

"The times they are a-changing."

"Bob Dylan?"

"Bob Dylan."

The ground rumbles as a titan kicks in a house house down the street. The residents screaming in horror as they're pinned underneath the rubble of what they've only known up until now as shelter, safety. Crushing their bones. Rendering their tiny limbs useless and agonizing. Titan picks up a chump and drops him down its throat and he cries no more. Such is life.

* * *

**A scourge of beasts**  
or; If there is a god, he doesn't live in Trost

* * *

Sasha swoops in from the top of a nearby building, cutting her cords and comes skidding to a halt just short of our two heroes. "Sup chumps," she says, wiping the sweat off her brow. "Jeez it's hot today. This time of year is balls."

"Hey Sasha," Eren says.

"Eren was just about to take me back to my place and fist me," Annie says, not bothering to look. "You wanna join?"

"Not just now," Eren says abruptly. "I wanna watch the sunset. I'll fist you after."

"I'm too hungry for fisting. You guys up for a souvlaki?"

"Not I said the Eren," says Eren looking up into the cloudy orange sky. "Besides, I don't have the money for a souvlaki."

"She doesn't have the money for a souvlaki, Eren," Annie says flatly.

"Kee-rect! I smelled souvlaki in the mess hall earlier. Begging me to take it away from the bad cafeteria ladies. Begging me to give it a loving home!"

"One day stealing food is gonna come back to bite you in the nuggets," Eren says. "I was just telling Annie about what happened to Armin. Did you hear what happened to Armin?"

"He was savagely beaten to death over a loaf of bread," Annie says.

"Hey now. I was getting there. I'm fucking this chicken, aight? You just hold it."

"Fuck away, Eren."

"Yeah, I actually heard about that," Sasha says, folding her arms and shifting her weight to one leg, hip sticking out to the side. "That chump was walking around dark alleyways in poor town after midnight with a goddamn loaf of bread. He was begging to be savagely beaten to death, if you ask me. If I had said nuggets to bite, I still wouldn't be too worried."

"Damn, Sasha," Eren says. "That's cold, dawg."

"Cold enough to warm my bones," she replies. "Where's your sister? Did she finally stop breastfeeding you?"

"She's not my sister, her parents are dead."

"Your parents are dead." She blinks. "That means nothing to me."

"Right. Hers died first. Like a long time ago. She was about to be human trafficked when I showed up."

"D-dam. What happened?"

"I took out a couple of chumps. Shanked 'em with a chiv. Or is it chivved 'em with a shank? I can never get that straight. Either way, I sneak attacked they ass with a good and liberal stabbing and untied her. Now, the third one, he blindsided me. I had to tell her to be a man and make that chump dead with a tall order of murder. Ice on the side. My thirst for blood has yet to be quenched."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah. Besides, she's Asian."

"What's Asian?"

"Some kind of otherworldly nonsense, at this point," Annie chimes in. "You know Eren."

"Lovely," Sasha says, wiping her forehead with the back of her forearm again. "Fuck it's hot. This weather is balls."

"You said that already," Annie says.

"It's true," Eren says.

"I'll say it again!" She snaps. "It's balls! Fuck summer, dude. Annie, come get a souvlaki with me."

"I don't want a souvlaki."

"You're a fucking liar. How could you NOT want a souvlaki?"

"That just does not sound appealing to me at all right now. Go steal food by yourself."

"Eren."

"No."

"Eren."

"No."

"C'moooon. Eren."

"Eeeerrrrrreeeeeennnnn"

"Not right now."

"Eren. C'mon."

"Stop."

"Eren."

"I'm watching the sunset, dude."

"Sunset's for chumps. That happens like, every day. Souvlaki, du."

"He doesn't want your damn souvlaki so leave it."

"Annie, I can speak for myself. Sasha, I don't want your damn souvlaki so leave it."

"What the fuck is wrong with you chumps."

"I have trouble opening up to people due to the cold, calculated shell I spent my youth building around myself, causing all sorts trust issues and emotional disconnections."

"My daddy liked to take me out into the woods and give me strange injections while screaming at me."

"Sorry I asked. What are you chumps up to after the fisting?"

"I'll probably paint," Annie says stretching her arms out and hanging them on the back of her head by the hands. The shrieking of a woman's top half being torn off echoes the streets, her bottom half stuck wriggling under the foot of a titan. Watching the big feller eat makes the grumbles in Sasha's tummy go apeshit. "It's been a pretty slow Saturday."

"I might be up for a souvlaki then, if you can wait."

"Wait? By then I'll be hungry for seconds. Hit me up, dude!"

"You bet. Goddamn this sunset is pretty."

"Meh," Annie says, being a dick.

"No, it's pretty," Sasha says quietly, pausing a moment to appreciate it.

"I thought you said sunset's for chumps."

"It is," she says, "I just never said I wasn't a chump."

"Ahh."

"And I'm hungry as all fucking get out. Be safe, use lots of lube you guys. Maybe a rubber glove. Hey, you guys know if there are any STD's you can catch from a fist?"

"I have no earthly idea," Eren says, blinking. "I've never thought about it."

"Perhaps if the fist is bleeding," Annie says matter-of-factly. "Any kind of open wound would transmit. Alternatively, if you fist someone who has an STD and then immediately fist someone who doesn't, I imagine you could transmit that way."

"Wow," Sasha says. "You quick, girl."

Annie shrugs. "It's a pretty basic science."

"Aight chumps. That souvlaki is singing to an audience of me. Conductor be damned." She launches her lines, harpooning the side of a nearby building. "Pax!"  
Sasha slingshots herself up into the sky and over the building, cutting her line only to relaunch herself in the direction of the mess hall.

"What is up with Sasha and saying shit that doesn't make any kind of sense."

"She's a bad influence, Eren," she says, turning her head back to the river's reflection of the darkening sky. "You probably shouldn't associate with that kind of trash."

"You sound like my sister."

"I thought she wasn't your sister."

"Whatever," he says. "Why always fisting with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean. Why do you only want me to always fist you all the time? Seems a bit onesided."

"That's kinda the point," she says, grinning slyly. "That fist is all about me. It's a nice sentiment."

Eren frowns. "Is that all this is to you?"

"Well, did you agree to fist me on the grounds that I'd fist you in return?"

"What? No, but-"

"Did I promise to fist you if you fisted me first?"

"No."

"So why do you just expect to get fisted, Eren?"

"I didn't mean-"

"You can't just walk around expecting to get fisted, Eren. That's not how life works."

He laughs and smiles a bittersweet smile. "Yeah. I don't expect anything, I was just kind of hoping that you like. Felt the same way I do? I dunno."

"I mean, look. I'm a nice person. I'll fist you back if you'd like, but you never asked."

"You're such a goob," he giggles. "You're right, tho."

"Most people in life just want you to fist them, Eren. That's the way the world works. If they gotta fist you a little to get fisted by you, they'll make sacrifices. Most people just want the fist, tho. Human nature and all."

"Isn't that a bit pessimistic?"

"Darling, you really must stop confusing pessimism with being realistic. If there's anything you taught me, it's that some people really do want to fist you just as much as they want to be fisted. It's very endearing to have learned that."

He blushes through a tight lipped smile. "Yeah."

"But most people just want to be fisted. And if you fist people blindly upon request and just hope you get fisted in return, you're looking at a hard path to walk buddy. I'd be more careful about that if I were you."

"You're right," he says. "How did you get to be so smart? You seem to know everything there is to know about fisting."

"Studies of interest, my friend. Did you bring the Goo(tm)?"

"Yeah," he says. "I brought the Goo(tm). Your place?"

"You know it. Let's get going."

"Fine, fine," Eren says, turning his back on the setting sun. "It's about dark anyway. I wonder how Sasha is doing."

Sasha is doing fine. Her feet land hard on the cement, sending the force up her legs and into her taint. It's a feeling she never fully gets used to, but she can't deny it as a guilty pleasure.  
Light masochism is a natural human trait, she thinks to herself.

Mess hall. She curiously wanders through the door with her finger to her lips, casing the joint. Party of three in the corner. Some white dude harassing the the dude at the counter. Looks like the chefs are in the back.

Perfect.

She slips over to the buffet line and sneakily stuffs a few souvlaki gyros wrapped in tinfoil into her coat. She can smell the pork â€“ she can almost taste it. Her mouth waters.

She scans the room again quickly to see if she's been spotted. All good. She skitters out of the mess hall with an aura of delight about her. That is, until she bumps into her former drill instructor, Keith Shadis.

"SASHA BLOUSE. WHAT IN GOD'S HOLY NAME ARE YOU DOING THIS HAPPY OUTSIDE THE MESS HALL?"

"Leaving, sir!"

"YOU DID ALWAYS LOVE EATING. WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO?"

"E-Eren's, sir!"

"JAGER. THAT CHUMP. WHAT IN THE DICKENS DO YOU WANT WITH A MAGGOT LIKE THAT?"

"He's my friend, sir! I was hoping to share a souvlaki when he gets done fisting his friend!"

"SOUNDS LIKE A FINE ENDEAVOR. DID YOU PAY FOR THAT SOUVLAKI?"

"No sir!"

"ARE YOU INFERRING THAT YOU EASILY SLIPPED INTO THE MESS HALL AND NABBED MORE THAN ONE SOUVLAKI WITHOUT ANYBODY NOTICING?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"SO SECURITY IS DOWN THEN?"

"Last I checked sir!"

"GOOD. THANKS FOR THE TIPOFF. CARRY ON SOLDIER."

"Sir yes sir!" She salutes by throwing her left arm around her back and her right fist accidentally but unforgivably against the souvlaki in the left inner pocket of her coat. There's probably that whitesauce everywhere. That whitesauce that makes a souvlaki a souvlaki.  
Part of her hopes she didn't make too bad a mess of her coat and shirt, but most of her worries she's ruined a souvlaki gyro.

She stops to wonder, just for a second, how Eren and Annie might be doing.

Annie and Eren are in an awkward situation. He's using both of his hands pressing each side of the tubular bottle that's leaking warm Goo(tm) down her enticing jam, quivering in anticipation.

"Remember to funnel your hand," she says.

"I know," he says. He's done this before. This time is no different. "How much of this goddamn Goo(tm) do I use?"

"You'll need to use the whole bottle, I imagine."

"Ah."

"Be sure to use it liberally on your fist," she says.

"Right." He stops squeezing with both hands and shifts ownership of the bottle over to his lift hand. He clenches his right into a fist and starts squeezing.  
Seconds later he's funneling his hand into Annie's juicy cave of warmth. He moves slowly, like a snake tracking prey in the deep jungle or wherever they track prey most predominantly. Before he knows it, lost in his own thoughts as he his, he pushes a bit harder for to have her jam slip around his pinky knuckle.

"Almost over the hump," he says.

"What?"

"No worries," he says, "just relax. Almost over the hump."

Outside the door, Sasha approaches, knocking sporadically. "Hey chumps. You done in there or what?"

"FUCK OFF!" both of their muffled voices simultaneously convey through the thick wooden door.

"Whatever," Sasha says, leaning her back on the bricks of the house aside the door. She digs in her pocket for a warm souvlaki. Not the one that's been crushed. He can eat that one, she thinks to herself as she tears apart the tinfoil and takes a bite hungrily into the souvlaki. Her teeth tearing through chunks of delicious pork. The satisfying lettuce crunch. Tomatoes and fries dis-positioning themselvesn as they're severed from themselves. The crunch, my god the crunch. Sasha is in heaven. "Mmmmm."

Inside things are heating up. They're over the hump and he's wrist deep in action. All kinds of the action. Unfortunately for the both of them Eren doesn't notice a fire ant crawling up his shoe, along his sock and up his calf.

There's a sudden tinge of the color pain creeps of his leg and the transformation begins.

The trance of the crunch is a deep one indeed, but the roaring of the beast, and the growth of its body crashing through the roof almost causes Sasha to drop her souvlaki. She swallows her food quietly and scoots quietly away from the house while the titan Eren takes this time to lick his bloody fist clean.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Eren says as he rips off the skull of another titan and teabags his body. It basically happens in an instant.

Beyond that, Erentitan walks through the streets, mindlessly shambling until he finds a wall to kick down. There's not much beyond that he remembers.

He remembers kicking in a wall. He remembers falling down. He's in the woods, and suddenly, as far as he knows, he's naked.  
He shrieks and tries to cover himself up with leaves. Once he sees the futility of it, his body goes limp.

Naked and alone, he finds himself cuddling the upper half of a resident scout. He unwraps the canteen from around his body and falls back onto his back. The cool ground generating a nice, balanced sensation against his back.

He clenches his fist and licks it again. He feels a feeling he doesn't understand.

Eren cries again but he doesn't know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is a collab. Next chapter is mine. ;)
> 
> -Dorminchu


	2. 02: The moon rises o'er Paradis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A man may continue to subsist in spite of his desires."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Well, this was something completely different. A real challenge, but a lot of fun to write. Hopefully someone finds this entertaining. (Yes, this is Dorminchu. I finally posted something and it's awful, awful, fucked-up crackfic. But hey, it's, uh, something!)

Not sure how to kick things into motion? No problem! Just throw in a random flash-back —

* * *

— _as we c_ _ut again to the city of Trost,_ exactly one week prior to the events of the previous chapter. There are no Titans, no soldiers, no bloodstains or body-parts littering the streets. All the buildings are intact, people go about their daily routines. Everything seems relatively normal.

Despite the lack of visible devastation, there's tension in the air. It's the ineffable kind, that everyone feels innately but doesn't like to think about.

The _why_ is not as complex as you might think, at least, not in the grand scheme of things. It's important to remember that Trost, like Shiganshina, is a bait-city, meant to attract Titans while the rest of the population can live out their sorry lives with peace of mind. But no-one living behind Maria or Rose ever thought the Walls would collapse, so Trost was caught off guard when things went to hell. There's been a shortage of food, money, and a surplus of people ever since Wall Maria fell and the government demanded a place for the unlucky to stay. Many of the original occupants were already damned at birth; they'll always be less-fortunate than the people that live on the other side of Wall Rose.

Surprisingly, more than a few people from Shiganshina have reached out to their Trost-ian neighbors, banding together despite the odds and a less-than-pleasant reception. Together, they've continued to subsist, providing whatever meager care the government had decided to withhold to whichever residents were in greatest need.

That's how it started, anyway. Then the sick kept coming and prices drove up. One merciless winter, and the crops were dying, too. The people from Shiganshina started turning others away and trying to save themselves. Soon the government started rounding up people to "take back the land stolen from them", but everyone knew they were running out of room for both the dead and the living. It was easier to gather up the weak, the old, the crippled, the political enemies, and let them starve or be eaten behind closed gates.

There was a pushback, of course. Protests. Then riots broke out. The Military Police had their hands full for weeks. After a lot of bloodshed and toil, the MPs overpowered the civilians and there was a "truce" of sorts. More like an understanding: break the peace, and you'll be sent to the fields to join the dead.

Things got quiet after that. Recently, people have started signing up for the military draft. Or signing their kids up in the hopes of giving them a better life. These kids are taken from the arms of parents. There's minimal inspection; a dying race cannot afford to be picky. Some are willing. Others are just scared, trying to get away from their own, hellish circumstances, hoping blindly to find salvation within an uncertain future. Some will be sent to work the fields. Most will not survive. Others remain beggars, whores, and thieves; every city has an underbelly.

Human nature remains a predictable constant. Even though the violence has died down, the rift remains between the occupants of these two cities, unspeakable but unmistakable.

Maria was lost years ago. Now, there are whispers that Trost could be next and it's not safe to stay put anymore. The luckiest among the few, those with means, they talk of pulling up their roots and moving away — moving where? There is no safe haven within the Walls, only the ever-present, encompassing sense that their time is running out.

But let us step away from all of this expository padding and consider a separate, smaller plight.

On the eastern side of Trost, there runs a ditch. It used to ferry people through the channel. That was a few years ago. During the aftermath of Maria's fall, it functioned as a source of refuge for the people coming in. Now the water's more or less dried up and no one seems to know why. Life is full of mysteries, many of which are not worth dwelling on.

More importantly, there's someone in the ditch. Lying on his side in the heart of the empty channel, with his limbs and ribs and nose bruised and/or broken, his face pressed against the ground, Armin Arlert opens the one eye that's not stuck shut with blood and mud. Looking at the sky, the soft rosy light of dawn. A few clouds inch across the unblemished expanse above him.

He's alone, as far as he can tell. His attackers must've gotten bored with beating him to death and left him to bleed out into the dirt. He supposes he's lucky that's all they did.

That aside, they didn't do a very good job of it. By _it_ , of course, he means putting him out of his misery. Armin's sort of disappointed, on reflection. Not because being alive hurts like nothing he's ever known, nor because of the fact he is probably going to picked apart slowly by birds or rats or people, worst of all. It's just — completely unfair, like a lot of things in his life.

Deliverance is a cruel joke. His sense of self-loathing and existential despair follows him, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even during church, even when he sleeps. It weighs on him in a way that Eren and Mikasa can try to understand but never will. Hatred of his own ability to survive has become subconscious, and now, lying here in the mud, with the town above him, the sheer injustice of it all becomes personified, like an old, childhood enemy hanging around at his deathbed.

Distantly, he can hear the sound of the people going about their lives. Nobody passes by this way. No one will come for him. The ditch itself is rather damp, which surprises him a little. Mud cloys easily to his skin and shirt. Mud and piss and shite and God only knows what else the criminal element gets up to down here.

He feels awful cold. Blood smeared all over his skin where he retains the sense of things. He should have known better. He should have waited back at the post with Eren or Mikasa. They were the ones that explicitly told him not to go into Trost. He was the one that yammered on about how dangerous it was to go, but Jean didn't listen. Jean, Ymir, and an unwilling Marco dragged him along for the ride with the promise that they would protect him.

In hindsight, he figures Marco probably meant it. Ymir was likely in this for a chance to sneak some alcohol back with her; she couldn't care less what happened to any of them. And yes, Jean's an idiot (like Eren, God bless him) but Armin would have thought someone like Jean would to have enough sense not to drag him into the worst part of the city on the pretense of getting food. (Alcohol. What does it matter, anyway?)

Maybe Armin's being too generous. Eren's not a prat, not intentionally. _Jean_ is. He really is. Everyone knows it. He's not even like Reiner or something, where the obnoxiousness is canceled out by genuine talent and expertise. Oh sure, he's talented, what does that matter. Armin's going to die alone, and he's happy to blame someone else for his current set of circumstances because even in the face of death, he's not happy.

_Kirschtein, you stupid fucking prick,_ he thinks, _I'm going to haunt your arse until the day you die and that's not even half of what you deserve._

If there truly is an afterlife, a just and loving God, maybe he'll find out. The thought brings him immense comfort, and he relaxes against the grimy riverbed.

Armin waits, his breath rattling and thin, ready for the inevitable. Then he waits some more. He's still alive by the time a few more people and a carriage pass by the ditch. The sounds fall away from his ears.

It's around this point that Armin decides God isn't merciful at all. He's still dying, not dead. Like when you lie down on your bed and try to go to sleep, but your brain is still whizzing about of its own accord and you lie there for minutes, maybe hours, wishing for something that should come easily. Maybe he's the arrogant prick and God is rubbing that in his face by withholding the sweet release of death. Fuck the Titans, fuck whatever is over the Walls that he'll never get to see because of his own incompetence, just fuck _everything_ , actually. What kind of brilliant young mind lets himself be tricked into such an obviously dangerous situation? (Armin wonders if this is what Tantalus felt like. Well, maybe Pelops would be a better example, except, Armin muses, he's not about to be cannibalised. He really, really hopes he's dead before then.)

Things can't get much worse for him. At least, that's the conclusion he's come to, until he's hauled up, off the ground, in a sitting position. There is a man holding him, his clothes smudged with grime. He must have clambered down here, God-knows-why.

"Your name," says the man, the strangely familiar man with long dark hair and glasses, "what's your name, cadet?"

Armin hears the words but can't respond coherently. He's not cognisant enough to focus on why this mysterious figure cares that he is a cadet and not a street rat. Everything seems a little colder.

"Cadet?"

The voice carries a familiarity, buried somewhere in his conscious. Armin smiles, blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn't even care what happens next as long as he doesn't have to wake up again.

* * *

**A scourge of beasts, II**

or; when life triumphs through adversity

* * *

Snap back to the present. More specifically, we're in the forest from the end of chapter one, far from the safety of Wall Rose, in Titan territory. If this story were a wee bit more ostentatious, there would be a paragraph or two dedicated to some more mythological imagery, perhaps indicating Eren's symbolic rebirth from his Titan to a human form. Or we could talk more about the Goo [tm] and how it's actually symbolic for some other, poorly-realized metaphor involving life, or the creation of.

But it's not, and we won't, because I'm not nearly pretentious enough, and it'll just make our protagonist suffer longer than is necessary. So I'll cut the poor guy some slack this time and say that Eren is still curled up on the ground, covered in slime from the Titan transformation.

He hasn't bothered to try and take the dead soldier's clothes, but he's contemplating the notion. He knows that he'll have to move eventually. He won't get any warmer if he stays here, cradling the dead. He stares right into the face in the hope of feeling something.

It's a young man. His skin is pale, but that could be due to exposure. He's got reddish-blonde hair, and one grey eye that is not festering. He can't have been dead for long, but he's already rotten. The flesh is discoloured where it has not been eaten away, revealing the grey of bone,  muscle. Flies and other insects burrowing within.

The stench is so overwhelming that Eren swears he can taste it. He gags. Rolling away, but he feels very sick. Heaving as he sprawls out, on hands and knees. He starts to crawl away, retching weakly. Nudity leaves him hyperaware of the earth below, the leather strap connecting him to the canteen, which feels a lot heavier against his skin than it ought to. Nauseous as he tries to stand, stumbling back down to a crouch. He sets his eyes back upon the source of his distress.

The body. The body is torn from the abdomen across the right leg, which is missing. But the clothes, the jacket. He needs those. It's not going to be easy. He feels the bile rise in the back of his throat, grits his teeth.

He reminds himself that death is no stranger.

* * *

The clothes Eren took from the dead soldier don't really fit him well. He's a little too small for them, and the fabric is sticky with gore where rot and mud have seeped in. But it's something. Anything is better than nothing.

It's getting dark as he stumbles on his own through the trees. Eren knows he will have to find food and shelter. He has no maneuver gear. No water. No rations. He could climb a tree, but what is the point when some of the Titans are just as tall? Might as well call him a dead man walking.

He reckons maybe he ought to feel worse about his situation, all things considered. But he doesn't feel anything. Tired, mostly. Abruptly, he feels a warm wetness come from his nostrils and down his face, tastes copper.

"Shit," he seethes, wiping his face. The flow doesn't stop. He clamps a hand over his nose, hoping it will eventually clot over. He won't be able to transform again. Not until he's healed. And he has no way of telling when that will happen. It doesn't matter much, in the grand scheme of things.

Blood trickles from the confines of his hand and he gives up, snuffling thickly through the flow. A visceral shudder overtakes him; he can't quite compose himself. Maybe he just doesn't want to understand. He flexes his hands, just for something to do. His right hand, in particular, feels oddly tacky, down to the wrist. Sore, because he keeps drawing a fist, and his fingers come away sticky. He'll draw blood, the way he keeps digging his nails into flesh. He needs to stop doing that but it reminds him that he is alive.

He remembers clawing his way from the Titan, and the transformation that brought him here. Nothing much beyond this. The sky's darkening, but the sun has not set; shouldn't there be Titans lurking around?

Best not to question it.

His pace slows. Soon it will be too dark to see. He takes refuge in the shape of a nearby tree, watches the blood drip onto his clothed leg. There's something very important he still has to do. But it's difficult to keep his eyes open, despite the cold seeping into his bones.

Eren inhales, exhales, too tired to feel much of anything, anymore. What will closing his eyes hurt? He's probably gonna die anyway.

Not out here, though. He's sure of that, in a fragile sense.

He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but —

* * *

— some things are out of your control —

* * *

_— in the instant before the next, where he is aware something is horribly wrong, then —_

* * *

_Everything is quiet. Open my eyes and_ _I feel at peace and empty all at once, if that makes any sense._

_I'm not in the forest anymore. I'm in a room I don't recognise, on the floor. Hardwood. Rolling over, I can see a bed above on the right, and when I look over to my left there is a window. It's ajar. No breeze. The sun's out. Midday, I think._ _The room is nice, if small. Maybe someone lives here and took me in._

_Body aches. Maybe from the fall that woke me. Tangled up in sheets and then I realise they're soaked through._ _It's hot. Almost steamy, I guess. I try to think but it's like my mind is working half-the-speed it normally does._ _I'm being stifled, and I want to get up but my body feels like lead. I'm all sweaty, too._ _I can still taste blood in my mouth._ _Ugh._

_Faintly annoyed as I try to free myself, try to sit up, naked. Smeared with blood_ _. Panic as I start to realise it's not mine. Bits of muscle, skin. Skin?_

_I should be sick, I guess. I should be hysterical. I feel nothing but a gnawing sense of comprehension. How did I get here? There's an answer, right in front of me, somewhere in this room but I can't bring myself to face it. Don't go to the window to cry for help. Something in my gut tells me I have to be very quiet._

_On my feet, I search the room first. A doorway on the wall farthest from me leads out into a street, but I don't hear anyone coming. Looking around, I see more signs of a struggle._ _The room has been torn apart. There is a heavy looking dresser tipped on its side, a bed beside me, no sheets. Look up at the ceiling; the sky's exposed, a massive, jagged hole where a roof should be. Turn to the window and find it shattered._

_I don't remember any of this…_

_Become conscious of the fact that I am the only one here that is unharmed. All around outside, there is debris. There's an arm, I think…? No. Still attached to the body or what's left of it. Smell is getting to me. I shuffle to the door when I hear something move behind me._

_Whirl around, on the defensive._ _Eyes drawn to the bed. There is a_ _body sprawled out upon the mattress. Intact, untouched_ _. It raises its head, looks at me like nothing is wrong._

_"Where are you going?"_

_Don't know how to answer. Starting to relax as familiarity overtakes better judgement._ _I go to her. Her hands are warm when she cups my face, fingers in my hair. Become aware of my own bloodiness, and try to brush her away but she doesn't seem to mind. Don't know why I'm so calm._ _I just know she's alive. This used to be someone's house and everything else around me is dead. She is safe._

_Sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her, I guess that means I'm safe, too. I close her in._ _Try to smile for the both of us._

_Up close, I notice that her eyes are glazed._ _She's breathing heavily, but_ _her grip is steady as she guides me, palm over her cheek, the side of her throat and I let my thumb rest against the pulse there for a second before continuing down._

_The flesh is_ _warm. Has a bit of give to it, like the body of the recently deceased._ _Stop thinking like that and try to concentrate on how she feels. The smell of her._ _I draw her up a sitting position, leg between hers. She ruts against me and I can already feel how wet she is. Pull her up and against me and she gasps a little._ _Then her mouth is at my throat and she's grabbing my hand, leading me down._

_Jesus._

_She chuckles, low and hoarse. Take her by the shoulder and push so she's braced against the wall_ _. She's smiling when I look at her. I'm never going to get used to seeing her like that. I never want to get used to it_ _._

_Opening her up is easy. Cupping her groin in my palm and she presses back onto me._ __Stop, up to the knuckle inside her._ _

_"What?" she asks hoarsely. Perfectly normal. Her cunt flutters and I —_ _I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to stop._ _Bring my fingers together, press in quick and she c_ _ontracts around me, groaning._ _Draw my hand out so my thumb teases the edge of her cunt and I lean in, nose-to-nose._

_You're so wet._

_Her eyes are glassy. Kiss her again, start to thrust. She hums. Pull back and — there's this_ _sensation of cold prickling all over my skin and in my chest —_ _blink, and _s_ _h _e's breathing thickly, like she's congested near the point of suffocation. Dry-drowning.___

_Reach out and cup her face, trembling viciously. Try to speak. Mouth opens and nothing comes out._

_A-Annie?_

_She doesn't move. Air leaves her chest in a slow, rattle of a sigh. Still looking at me._

_I think she's trying to smile but her jaw is loose._

_Oh._

_Oh Jesus Christ._

_Disconnecting from the present —there is a sudden, irreversible urge to flee. Propel myself away as though she's burned me._

_Don't look down._ _Don't fucking look._ _Somehow able to manage this._

_Jesus fucking christ she's, she's dead and I think (stop) why don't I remember —_

— _in an instant a change of scene split wide open from belly to sternum, blood oozing from the mouth and —_

_no_

_nononono_

_don't_

_don't think about_

_the blood (her blood?) all over my skin_

_and her insides spilling out of what's left of her all this raw soggy meat insides_

_jesus fuck_

_i can taste it i thi —_

_th_ _e very scene shifts with my ability to accept what is happening_

_double over going to be sick on the bloodied sheets her blood it's her fucking blood it's her_

_how long has she been dead like this_

_stumbling away from her_

_from this room_

_need to get outside_

_please_

_let me wake up_

_let me be sick_

_i don't want this_

_i don't_

* * *

_there's a sign at the window_

_that he struck you_

_a crescendo, annie_

— _it's symbolic, you see, like a popular song that doesn't exist in this world, and in reality still wouldn't exist for several decades, or centuries, depending on which fan theories you subscribe to —_

* * *

_out into the street_

_too many dead to bury_

_and I turn and turn upon myself but find no one_

_struck suddenly in the chest by something heavy and blunt, bringing me to the ground_

_there is a man above in uniform his rifle raised and pointed at me because I am a murderer_

_and he opens his mouth and says —_

* * *

"What the hell are you doing out this far in Titan territory?"


End file.
